LIKE IN most places, in Landour, an outpost of Mussoorie in Uttarakhand, the monsoon always arrived accompanied with its rituals. The morning one, says writer Stephen Alter, involved knocking the heels of his sneakers and shaking them vigorously to check no scorpions were lounging inside. Then as day would turn to night, a young Alter would don his gumboots, pick up an umbrella and go beetle collecting.
From then to now, a lot has changed in Landour and elsewhere but what remains unchanged is the unpredictability of the monsoon. “The inevitability of rain but also its unpredictable nature gives this season a special feeling of anticipation and suspense. Every year we wait expectantly for the monsoon to arrive but we’re never quite sure… When will the rain start? Is it really here? Where has it gone? How long will it last? The monsoon is always full of surprises,” he says. Alter’s recent book, The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon (Aleph), captures the unpredictability as well as the cultural, literary and ecological landscape of one of the greatest shows on earth.
Monsoon in Landour
“The Fragrance of Rain refers not only to petrichor, the perfume of wet earth after the first rain shower, but also to other odours that accompany the monsoon — the sour-sweet scent of mouldering leaves; damp, clammy clothes that never dry completely or the aroma of monsoon flowers. More than anything, however, if I close my eyes, I can recognise the sound of rain as it begins to fall, from the first stray spattering of drops to the gathering rush of wind and then the torrential deluge that follows,” he says.
For the book, Alter initially thought he would track the progress of the south-west monsoon like Alexander Frater did in his Chasing the Monsoon. “Though the book began as a journey and I flew to Kerala, hoping to see the first storms blowing in from the sea, soon enough I realised that the monsoon itself is a wayward traveller as the poet Kalidasa describes. Better to hang around at home and welcome its return,” says Alter.
So he decided to focus on Mussoorie, the place he grew up in, and on Goa, where he now has a second home. Mussoorie is where Alter’s American missionary grandparents and parents settled and Goa is where Alter and his wife decided to get a place a little over a decade ago to occasionally escape the Mussoorie cold. “We are climate migrants. Focusing on these two places gave me two contrasting landscapes and two contrasting parts of India,” says Alter.
Goa is where Alter and his wife decided to get a place a little over a decade ago to occasionally escape the Mussoorie cold. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Tracking the rain, coast to mountain
“What you see in Goa is the monsoon coming ashore and coming inland from the sea. It really feels like waves of rain pouring in. The other thing in Goa is the trees and plant life are very tropical, especially when you go up to the Sahyadris and the Western Ghats, it’s a rainforest basically. And that experience of being totally surrounded by tropical foliage and then all of the different creatures that emerge, the frogs and the snakes, so that experience is one thing.
Landour and Mussoorie is also very wet and there are also all kinds of creeping crawling creatures but it’s different species altogether. More than anything the most dramatic thing there is the oak and the deodar trees have these epiphytic species that grow on the branches so the entire tree is covered in a fringe of green. It’s also, of course, cooler up there. There are days even in the monsoon when you feel maybe I should light a fire. But the fundamental contrast is seeing the monsoon come ashore from the sea, and in Mussoorie seeing the monsoon strike the Himalaya and the deluge that happens when the clouds come in contact with the mountains and the colder temperatures.”
Stag Beetle (Credits: Stephen Alter)
From presenting scientific accounts of the genesis of the monsoon to going back to Vedic mythology to documenting the journeys the voyagers from India and Arabia took riding the strong gales, Alter’s canvas is wide.
His research into the monsoon yielded many interesting details. “One of the many facts I didn’t know before researching this book is that climate scientists and paleobotanists have discovered a correlation between plankton blooms in the Arabian Sea and the intensity of the monsoon, all of which is linked to the water temperatures.” says Alter, over the phone from Colorado in the US.
Landour and Mussoorie’s oak and the deodar trees that have epiphytic species that grow on the branches. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
The role of the Himalaya in the annual cycle of the monsoon was another aspect that fascinated him. “Warming temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau generate powerful air currents that draw rafts of clouds thousands of kilometres across the seas and inland over the Indian subcontinent until they eventually collide with the mountains and release their moisture,” he adds.
The many moods of the changing seasons have an enduring hold over Alter. “There are so many places where, you know, out of 365 days, 300 days are exactly the same. Many years ago, I lived in Hawaii and the temperature there year-round remained 80 to 82 Fahrenheit. It never seemed to change. It’s a beautiful place but after a while I got very bored. The variations in climate that we experience in the mountains and on the coast makes life interesting, sometimes it makes it too interesting,” he laughs.
One of his childhood memories are of the landslides that would regularly block the road from Dehradun to Mussoorie. “In those days there were no JCBs, so sometimes Mussoorie would be cut off for two or three days. But as we joke now, the state animal of Uttarakhand is the JCB. We all depend on it now,” he laughs.
Stag beetle (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Landslides and flash floods
Celebrated in literature as a season of love and longing, despair and destruction are the other side of this season, from the landslides in Wayanad in Kerala to the devastating flash floods and mudslides that struck Dharali, a village in Uttarakhand, last August.
“First of all, there are many more people and there are many more settlements in the hills now. The entire Char Dham route has become one Mall road from Uttarkashi up to Gangotri. And so, what has happened is there’s only so much level of ground. So, people are obviously building their ashrams or their hotels or their Maggie points at every little piece of level ground. Often, sadly, those are right in the way of the rivers and the streams or the landslides. Erosion in the Himalaya has been made worse because of poor planning and a failure to understand the powerful force of water,” says Alter whose book chronicles the journey of this wayward force of nature.
Mussoorie monsoon. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Many attribute climate change for making this force even more erratic in recent years. “I’m sure that climate change is affecting the monsoon in many ways but that’s something impossible to measure from casual observations and anecdotal evidence. What has definitely changed in my lifetime is our response to the monsoon. We now use technologies that insulate us from the climate — air-conditioners, de-humidifiers, waterproofing materials, etc.,” he says.
As the monsoon travels through India, it’s the explosive energy of thunderstorms that Alter really enjoys. There are other perks as well. “Walking through a monsoon forest in Goa after dark, searching for bioluminescent fungi, luna moths, bush frogs, hump-nosed pit vipers and other nocturnal creatures that proliferate with the rain is far more exciting than going to any casino or nightclub,” he says.
Yet, says Alter, when the monsoon finally departs, “I’m always ready for the gloomy mist and rain to give way to clear autumn skies.”
RAIN CHECK
Places to visit in the monsoon
Goa is wonderful in the monsoon, so long as you are prepared to get wet. There’s a freshness to the saturated air and a feeling of unrestrained fertility, all the way from the coast up into the Western Ghats.
Rajasthan, when the arid landscape comes alive. Jodhpur’s Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park is spectacular in the monsoon, as all sorts of indigenous plant species sprout and bloom.
Visual design by Navya Roshan, an intern at indianexpress.com.
Stephen Alter’s stories of rain (Photo: Stephen Alter) 
Monsoon in Landour
Goa is where Alter and his wife decided to get a place a little over a decade ago to occasionally escape the Mussoorie cold. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Stag Beetle (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Landour and Mussoorie’s oak and the deodar trees that have epiphytic species that grow on the branches. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Stag beetle (Credits: Stephen Alter)
Mussoorie monsoon. (Credits: Stephen Alter)
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